Russia vs Wikipedia (and cannabis page)

Posted on August 23 2015

The Russian Government is treating to ban the entire Wikipedia site in their country, over a page describing charas, a hashish type of cannabis.

Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin's internet watchdog, has reportedly written to Wikipedia's administrators saying it will be ban the website in its entirety unless the entry - which basically provides a recipe - is removed.

Apparently, due to the format of Wikipedia’s site, and specifically its security settings, it is impossible to ban a solitary page meaning the Kremlin have to choose between accepting ‘technically' illegal content being available or putting a ban on the entire site.

A court in the city of Astrakhan ruled that the page should be blocked meaning this could be the first time a Russian court has banned Wikipedia content. This example of would-be censorship follows on from Roskomnadzor temporarily banning similar, drug-related content on Reddit, earlier this month.

So what would the Russian people do without Wikipedia? Where would they find all their answers, to pretty much anything, in just one place? Well apparently Putin’s Presidential Library are creating their own version of Wikipedia, where I’m assuming, you won’t be able to find charas recipes...